Oxfam publishes advice on handling a cholera outbreak – but are we right?

Oxfam’s Cholera Outbreak Guidelines were developed as an internal resource, but today we are sharing them externally in order to seek input from the international humanitarian community. We hope that this feedback will inform later editions in order to develop a powerful resource for anyone looking to prepare for, prevent and control a cholera outbreak. Here, one of the authors of the Guideline, Bibi Lamond, explains more.

I have been responsible for implementing and coordinating cholera outbreak programmes since 2006. In my work I have found that, although there are numerous documents and books on medical intervention for cholera control, there are no comprehensive water, sanitation and hygiene promotion (WASH) guidelines.

Oxfam’s new publication, the Cholera Outbreak Guidelines aims to meet this need and could set standards for other emergency WASH actors.

The content of the Guidelines has evolved from firsthand field experience in Oxfam’s emergency cholera programmes in Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. It has also drawn on information from other NGOs, such as Médecins Sans Frontières, renowned for their cholera work in the field.

We all know that rapid interventions are essential at the onset of a cholera outbreak to reduce preventable deaths. But, prior to the launch of these Guidelines, Oxfam WASH teams had no standardised way of designing cholera control activities. When Programme Managers asked for evidence of effective activities, WASH teams struggled. In terms of budget and staff numbers, cholera control programmes were often under-resourced from the very beginning due to a lack of guidance or lessons learned from past cholera programmes.

The new publication offers clear information for ensuring effective resources as soon as a cholera outbreak is reported. It aims to cover everything a health promoter, sanitation engineer, water engineer or programme manager will need to have at their finger tips to start up an effective WASH control programme with minimum delay.

It is packed with practical information hard-won from the field covering everything from the gender split of programme staff, to how to prevent cholera transmission at funerals, to what to do if someone has swallowed chlorine.

But Oxfam is not claiming to know all the answers. We are inviting comments, suggestions, new ideas and advice from our humanitarian colleagues from agencies around the world.

The Guidelines are available to download in English, French and Spanish.

Dear Yanti, I have just moved your post about your paper ("Towards sustained sanitation services: a review of existing frameworks and an alternative framework combining ecological and sanitation life stage approaches.") into this thread as it fits better here. (if anyone wants to see the link just scrol up to her post on 13 Oct). As it's not a […]

Dear Sanjay, I can't really picture how you would set this directory up and who could add to it? It reminds me a little bit of two existing pages on Wikipedia which might inspire you: - Water pollution in India: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_pollution_in_India - Indian states and union territories ranked by prevalence of open defecation en.wikipedia.org/w […]

You are so right about pointing out the earth-shattering news, Arno! Let's all forget about quoting that 2.4 billion figure for people without access to improved sanitation (from the MDG era). I think the new figure to keep "pushing" into people's attention is 4.5 billion people without access to safely managed sanitation. I am doing my b […]

Welcome to Aquaya as a new SuSanA partner! I first came across Aquaya via a project they had funded by the Gates Foundation which I had added to the SuSanA project database for them: It was called "Cash on delivery for water quality testing", see here: www.susana.org/en/knowledge-hub/projects/database/details/150 It ended in 2015 - do you have any […]